H EADLINES
Rugby Continued from Page 1
Natalie Klotz
play in national competitions
even further. Last year’s rugby
season was canceled, and this
season looked uncertain before
Israel’s vaccination rollout
started to send the country
on the path toward normality.

Th e team was able to practice
together, but weren’t sure what
they were preparing for.

Their training paid off
when they learned they would
16 MAY 13, 2021
Photo by Bartzi Photography
play against the UAE. On
March 19, the men’s teams
met at Dubai’s Rugby Park
in the city’s Sports City for
the first-ever friendly match
between Israeli and Emirati
national teams in any sport,
The Jerusalem Post reported.

Spectators were not allowed in
the arena due to COVID-19.

In the fi rst game, Israel
defeated UAE 33-0. Th e teams
Israel women’s rugby national team
mixed players for a second
game. Aft er the competition,
the Israeli team stayed in
Dubai to celebrate and held
an outdoor Shabbat ceremony
with the Emirati team.

For the women’s match,
the Emirati team will travel
to Israel.

“It defi nitely feels historic. It
was really cool to watch the boys
go. We’ve kind of been waiting
for that moment for ourselves,”
Klotz said. “Having the Emirati
team come now that these
borders are open and especially
in COVID and this being our
fi rst international match in
almost two years, it feels like it’s
kind of monumental in many
ways for us.”
Reut Ben David, a national
team manager, thinks sports
can play a key role in expediting
relationships between the
countries. “Sport is a good platform
and a very clean platform
to normalize relationships
between any two groups,”
she said. “It doesn’t have any
politics in it, it’s just people
coming who want to play and
want to have fun.”
Even before the pandemic
JEWISH EXPONENT
hit, national team coach Omer
Chalfi said rugby players faced
challenges due to Israelis’ disin-
terest in or even ignorance of
the sport. When he tells people
he coaches rugby, he is oft en
met with confusion. When
he tells people he coaches
women’s rugby, they are even
more surprised.

“We don’t have a professional
league, everything’s an amateur
level, which means it is much
more diffi cult for the girls.

Th ey’re not getting paid, they’re
all working full-time jobs on
their own time, they’re training,
they go to the gym, they’re there
on their own time,” he said. “It’s
much harder to be an amateur
athlete than a professional one
in that way because we expect
them to train almost as a
professional athlete, and they
have their own personal life and
their work.”
For Klotz, the sports culture
in Israel feels diff erent from
the sports culture in the U.S.

She said it’s diffi cult to recruit
young adults who go straight
from high school to the army,
and there are few universities
that off er sports scholarships.

But the beauty of rugby, she
Courtesy of Natalie Klotz
said, is that it is possible to
become a good player quickly.

You just have to put in the time.

“It’s one of the few [sports]
that you can go to the fi rst
practice without having heard
of it, and you can be a very
competitive player in one year,
as long as you are willing to
give it a go and not be scared,
and it has a lot of room for new
players,” she said.

Now that it looks like Israel
and other European countries
will be safe enough to allow
travel, the team plans to travel
to Serbia in June to play against
European teams in the European
Rugby Champions Cup.

Ben David said the women’s
team has received sponsor-
ship from the city of Netanya,
which will work to publicize
the upcoming UAE match, and
Athena, the national program
advancing women’s sports in
Israel. “It’s a very good opportu-
nity for us to make ourselves
public and to raise awareness
to rugby and women’s rugby
specifi cally,” she said. ●
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
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